#my fringe playlist is actually one of my favorite playlists i have

[wen-kexing-apologist]

when you get this you have to answer with 5 of ur fav songs and then tag your mutuals to do the same :) (no pressure <;3)

tagged by @twig-tea (I did not forget, I just got busy!)

Oo I haven't had to think much about my favorite songs, I have been on a heavy podcast binge lately and otherwise I have been listening heavily to the playlist my roommate and I made for when we need to scream sing in the car for #mentalhealth.

Here are some of my favorite, three of these I count as my favorites based on the fact that every time they play I simply must rewind and listen to the song like five times before I can move on

'The Loneliness Waltz' by The Ballroom Thieves

This song has some incredibly smart lyrics and I love the strings in this song so much. The guitar makes my brain happy, the cello makes my soul happy. (This is a get to know me better post so here is a fun fact, I used to play the flute, but if I were to have a do-over I would have chosen to play the cello, it's so beautiful). There is some harmonizing on the last few lines that I absolutely.

My favorite lines in the song:

"Comfort reminds us of how it should feel / It wistfully chains us to fictive ideals / And it spurs us to keep all our love in a jar / Says I'm just keeping you from harm"

'Gut Punch/Don't Meet Your Idols' by Everybody's Worried About Owen

This is such a great depression song, I have listened to this song so much. It's really uptempo and again I absolutely love the lyrical work that is being done in this piece. I find this song interesting because the song is very mis-matchy between the first half and second half. The energy radically changes from a staccato bop to more of a tired, lyrical melody. I hadn't listened to this one in awhile, but some grief from last week put this song back in my head and it was very cathartic to listen to it.

Favorite lines in the song:

"Every time I see a spark / There's someone putting out the fire / But I will not let my grandparents bury their grandchild / It's a struggle back and forth / And I'm learning but it's happening by force / It's 4am and I'm fucking tired. " (Side note: it feels really good to scream "I'm fucking tired" when you are in fact, fucking tired).

'Honeybee' by Steam Powered Giraffe

This song is just so so beautiful, it's peaceful, it's loving, it's got a sort of barbershop quartet vibe when there are harmonies, and you know a bitch loves a good barbershop quartet. I think something that a lot of the songs I love have in common is at least one part of the melody that reminds me of raindrops falling (definitely why I am so desperately in love with Gymnopedie No. 1 by Erik Satie)

Favorite Lines:

"Oh, turpentine erase me whole / ('Cause I) don't want to live my life alone / (Well I) was waiting for you all my life / (Oh oh) oh / (Why I) I / Set me free / My honeybee"

'Myth to Live By' by Lizard Boy, Original Cast

Honestly, this is one of my favorite musicals even though I have never seen the actual show. I think it was a fringe festival sort of musical but there are so many songs in the Lizard Boy album that I absolutely love. I had a hard time deciding between A Terrible Ride and Myth to Live By for my favorite in their album but I really love The Woah Song, Recess is so fun, I Might Stay, I Don't Know Where to Go. Anyway that album is fun. I don't think the men's voices are necessarily the best, but I think it works the show they are performing. I am now realizing that a lot of my favorite songs have some harmonizing that I love.

Favorite lines:

"I've been waiting for change to drop out of the sky / I've been squeezing the meaning out of one simple word / Try / And I'm making a list of the things that I'm proud of / And I'm making a list of the people that I love / And I'm setting my limits impossibly high / Cause my life is gonna be a myth to live by."

'Spite' by Vandaveer

THE FUCKING OPENING CELLO MOMENTS IN THIS SONG ARE SO FUCKING FUN. I did not know that cello could have a rasp to it, but oh my god I just love it so much. I'm also fueled by spite so this is a great song for me lol.

Favorite line:

"He cut out his sleep to spite his dreams / Picked all the flowers to spite the bees / He burned his bible to spite the Lord / Took a day off to lick his wounds I heard him swear / "Life is such a wretched affair / I'm gonna hold my breath to spite the air"

__ Twig, thanks for tagging me in this, I have learned something about myself and my music tastes which are that I apparently have a thing for songs with staccato and heavy use of strings in their score and fun harmonies.

okay, I don't know who has already done this so: @neuroticbookworm, @solitaryandwandering, @telomeke, @respectthepetty, @benkaaoi

[chemicalbrew]

for the character thing u know i gotta ask zero

obsessed with how you specified with a sprite. it's gonna look so awkward, I love it.

send me a character and i’ll list:

favorite thing about them

The weirder answer: the specific tone of voice I have developed for him in my head that I can never explain to people, but it just Is. Lately it's been getting more muddy and vague (Gotta go replay!!! Yearning...), but in general, holy shit, it's so good.

The normaler answer: the way his whole character is on the undefinable fringe between right and wrong, life or death, being perfect and just being, etc etc. You get it, it's on the ceiling.

least favorite thing about them

THE WAY HE JUST WON'T LEAVE MY HEAD.

Seriously, though, I don't know... there are plenty of parts to him you're supposed to dislike and question, but at this point I have stewed and pondered on them enough to actually adore how well they fit together.

There's at least some sort of inferable reason to just about everything he does or can do, so it's genuinely hard to find a reason to hate him, despite it all. When the character is complex... bottom text...

favorite line

Off the top of my head, probably "You honestly thought you were in my league." I feel like I talked about that moment plenty (with some people, or maybe with myself), and also not enough, but it really feels like the first (or one of the first) times his core character really shines on its own.

And due to how it's all constructed, in the moment all you can really think about is how much you agree. You just sit there, somewhere between utterly fascinated and deeply... immersed, for lack of a better word, and it's the exact way they want you to feel. They want this to stick, so it does. It's just a good scene.

Shout-out to "You are wise and virtuous." in HERO as well, because that is probably my single favorite bit in the whole thing. Help.

brOTP

The little girl, obviously :3 + Fifteen, but it's too complicated to just call it that. I'm not in the mood\shape to try explain it exactly, especially since you already know

OTP

The receptionist. <3 <3 <3

It's the kinda shit that realistically shouldn't work out, which is why I'd love to see it actually get pulled off in canon, LMFAO. But I'm not too hung up on it, obviously.

nOTP

Literally everything and everyone else (aside from the two crossover crack ships I now have, but that's entirely out of this ask's scope and I don't want to elaborate), including 150 seen through any other lens than mine, to be honest.

Lea him alone.

random headcanon

He really wants to have a cat, but doesn't act on it for multiple reasons, from stray cats just generally being nasty on top of how The Everything in the district is horrible, to the crushing knowledge of never being able to take care of it perfectly.

unpopular opinion

Probably every single opinion I have. I don't like answering questions like these because I hate knowing what is popular no matter what fandom. The very concept of such a question consistently stumps me, because I am permanently off in the corner, just doing my own thing.

song i associate with them

You've seen my playlist, and I don't like going off about it unless prompted, so I'll simplify and say Overdose. :3

favorite picture of them

[scrolls through 💿 tag and my silly art stash rapidly] uh... I'm gonna pick three... if there's anything KZ fandom always does right, it's the art, ugh.

The second one in this tweet. There's something about the framing and the texture that just gets me so bad...

This post. I keep saying it, but Scary is one of my fav artists in general, and I continue projecting stuff onto this piece specifically, so it just means so much to me, oh my god. That and the song it's coupled with. Help me.

This post. The expression and pose, the colors, literally everything about the linework, and to top it all off, the gem that is the fucking caption. I think about it weekly.

[dangerously-human]

2, 6, 29

I've answered a couple of these already, but I have more than one answer, so this is a good excuse to share more!

2. How many works did you publish this year?

A whopping, record-setting 19! Part of the reason for that is how I've really embraced drabbles, of course, and a lot of it has to do the singular focus of special interests. Another factor is that this is the first year I participated in writing events: Nikolina Week as well as Sparktober. Both really helped to focus my creativity, I think.

6. Favorite title you used?

I will not lie, part of the drive to wrap up and publish Parallel to Mine today was so I could use that as my answer to this question. (Also, I just really wanted to be able to say I shared my 60th work on AO3 this year.) It's a lyric title from "Berenstein" by The Band CAMINO, a song that makes it onto most of my writing playlists, but never has it fit so perfectly as it does for Fringe: it's a song about those almost love stories that might have actually come to pass in different timelines and alternate universes, after all.

At another place in time

You were infinitely mine

Relatively alright

When Berenstein was fine

At another place in time

Only parallel to mine

The universe was alright

When Berenstein was fine

And like. Parallel (universe) to mine fits really well, and so does the idea of Olivia almost belonging with Lincoln, the way she's sort-of-kind-of with him at one point, before it's all reset. All that almost angst of the lyrics themselves fit this ship and this situation perfectly.

29. Favorite line/passage you wrote this year?

A huge part of my decision to write The Magic Number was my desire to give John space to process the daughter he'll never know. And I think that section turned out pretty well:

Aeryn cups his cheek, her touch as gentle and knowing as her words. “You wish you could do the same for her.”

He’s more surprised than she is when the next breath he takes catches in his throat. Almost before he recognizes the sensation of unshed tears, Aeryn’s already smoothing her hand over his brow, up past his temple to his hair, tucking the ends she hasn’t had enough time to trim lately behind his ears. It takes him a few hundred microts to find words for the worry, but she doesn’t rush him, simply anchors him with the contact and waits.

“What if it’s a girl, Aeryn?” he manages at last. Spoken aloud, the fear feels bigger than it had unidentified inside his chest, even if he’s still not sure how to explain it.

As so often happens, Aeryn understands what he doesn’t even have language for. “You’re not replacing her,” she replies firmly. “Your daughter will always be your oldest, even if she’s not your firstborn.”

“I didn’t ask for her, barely had a say,” he admits, voice breaking a little, “but… she’s mine anyway.” A beat. “And I left her.”

“She will be raised in love.”

John closes his eyes, feeling hollow. The vision of his daughter, arms wrapped around his neck, hovers closer than he can bear. “Not mine, though.”

Aeryn kisses his eyelids, then rests her forehead against his.

“You love her now. You loved her enough that you were willing to give up everything to be turned into a frelling statue again for eighty cycles, John. You loved her enough to find a way for Katralla and Tyno to raise her in peace. You do not love her any less than you do D’Argo simply because you do not - cannot - rock her to sleep or fret over whether she’s old enough for solid foods.” 

[foundfamilyfringedivision]

Fringe Playlist!!!

So this isn't actually my entire fringe playlist, this is just some songs on there that mean a lot to me and that I would do something with if I had any skills at all </3

Take Me To War // The Crane Wives - Olivia Olivia oliVIA. B o t h o f t h e m.

Bullet // Saint Motel - 'you can't stop a bullet when it's set into motion' [cut to Olivia doing exactly that]

Inventor's Daughter // Branches - THE polivia song of all time. ESPECIALLY if you consider Peter as the inventor's daughter.

Beginning of the End // Weezer - this is literally just. The show. A lot of the lyrics fit SO WELL ('save the pieces of your brain' anyone?)

Dirty Imbecile // the Happy Fits - LOVE MY MOM AND LOVE MY DADDY SURE THEY MESSED ME UP- yeah so I think about Peter Bishop a lot

The Great Unknown // Jukebox the Ghost - this is MY Lincoln song. Yes it's weirdly hopeful compared to some of the others but that's just me manifesting what I want for my boy. And there IS something waiting for him in the great unknown!!! He deserved all the happiness he got!! Let go of the world you know <3

Battle Dancing Unicorns With Glitter // Five Iron Frenzy - ok I don't have anything to say for myself here. This is just a fun song that fits the super smart idiots vibe of the fringe division.

Earthbound // the Accidentals - Etta!!!! Etta. My girl.

And some songs that are not actually on the playlist for I don't know why reasons but that I lately haven't been able to stop thinking about in regards to the show (probably because I am hyperfixating hard and it's a problem)

Fate Goes // Shayfer James & Kate Douglas - fate goes as ever fate must... until it doesn't ;}

Something You Don't Know // Rachel Rose Mitchell - yes this is such a weird song. but ohhhhhhh. Peter & the Observers is honestly one of my favorite storylines.

Wondering // Bridges of Madison County - yes this is from a musical. yes I have never listened to any other song from the musical. yes it's literally perfect

Also I have seen Losing Your Memory by Ryan Star in a couple edits but I can't stop thinking about it as specifically a September/Donald song, especially in the final season.

[penmansparadise]

Billy Hargrove ~ A Simple Car Ride

*I DON’T OWN THIS GIF* *CREDIT TO GIF OWNER*

Pairing: Billy Hargrove x Fem Munson!Reader

Word Count: 2.3k

Warnings: Mild language

a/n: This was a requestfrom my Wattpad.  It's just some fun protective big brother Eddie and a little bit of Billy being a good boyfriend.  I mention the song Lunatic Fringe by Red Rider in here.  It's a good one, so go check it out.  It's actually off the Vision Quest soundtrack, which is a good 80s movie.  Typical teenage angst movie, but still good nonetheless.  Another good song that I didn't mention but that is also on the Vision Quest soundtrack is Journey's Only the Young (my personal favorite song by them).  So, check that one out too.  

I have slowly piecing together things for The Adventurer and the Dungeon Master.  I will say that I will probably release a playlist before I do anything.  Just to get you all in the mood lol.  Well, anyway, my next post will be Steve and Billy smut *insert eye emoji here* so be ready for that!  As always, thank you for all the support!!

§

Billy’s fingers traced the stitching of your jeans up the sides of your thighs. He leaned his head into the crook of your neck and nibbled a little on the soft skin there. You let out a little sigh as his fingers crept under the hem of your shirt and tickled the bare flesh on your waist. The warmth of his Camaro against your back was a stark contrast to his cold fingers. Your insides clenched. The combined sensations were driving you crazy. This wasn’t out of the ordinary for the two of you. Ever since you and Billy started dating, there were few things he enjoyed more than publicly showing you just how much he was into you.

You and Billy had been dating for a few months, but you had Billy chasing you for far longer. When he and Max first moved to Hawkins, he was like a hot commodity. Every girl wanted to be with him. He would flirt with them, and they would all swoon until they were putty in his hands. That was every girl, except you. Billy tried to hit on you once, and you publicly humiliated him when you rejected his advances in front of everyone. For anyone in their right mind, they would have given up. But Billy clearly wasn’t taking “No” for an answer. He just kept going back to you. Day after day, he would try and epically fail with his advances. Little did he know that he was slowly winning you over. You just weren’t letting him in on it.

It became a sort of game between you and Billy where he would approach you every day with something new. One day it was chocolate and a flirty pick-up line. The next day it was a stuffed bear and a sweet love note. You loved it, and soon, after several long months, you gave in and finally agreed to become Billy’s official girlfriend. But there was one person who made his dislike toward you and Billy very clear, and that was your brother, Eddie. He never liked Billy, so when you started dating, he couldn’t help but express his disapproval.

“He’s like a walking STD, Y/N,” Eddie had said one day while driving home from school.

“So, you’re telling me you’re thinking about my sex life?”

Eddie’s eye widened to the size of dinner plates.

“What!? Oh, God, no,” he said, gagging, “why would you even say that?”

Needless to say, that was the last time your brother discussed your relationship with you again.

Billy’s lips moved up your neck and over your cheeks until they connected with yours. You smiled into the kiss, then pulled back enough to look him in the eye.

“People are watching, Billy.”

Billy rolled his eyes before looking around the parking lot at the several onlookers.

“And?” He said, sliding his hands into your rear pockets and squeezing a little, “Let them. I want everyone to know your, mine.”

You chuckled.

“First of all,” you said, grabbing his forearms and pushing until his hands were off your ass and on your hips, “you don’t own me.”

He moaned as a smirk pulled at his lips.

“Hm, I love when you get feisty.”

“I bet you do,” you said, leaning forward a little before placing a swift kiss on his lips.

You tried to pull back, but Billy’s arms wrapped around your waist as his lips started attacking every exposed piece of skin he could find. Loud bouts of laughter bubbled out of you until you heard someone clear their throat behind you. You turned your head to see Eddie standing at a safe distance with his hands in his pant pockets. His eyes were trained on the asphalt in front of him, and he was rocking on the balls of his feet. He peeked up through his hair, and when he noticed you were looking, he fully raised his head.

“Are you ready, Y/N?”

You nodded, then turned back to Billy.

“I’ll see you later, babe,” you said, then planted another peck onto his lips.

“Okay, princess,” he said, and as you turned to walk toward your brother, he leaned to the side and said, “Nice to see you too, Eddie.”

Eddie gave him a tight-lipped smile, but when the two of you started moving toward Eddie’s van, his smile fell.

“Nice to see you too, Eddie,” he said in a mocking tone.

You rolled your eyes.

“Really, Eddie?”

“What?” He asked, hands going up in defense, “I didn’t say anything.”

You just scoffed and, when you reached the van, hopped into the passenger side.

“You know, I don’t know why you don’t like him?”

Eddie groaned as he tossed his backpack into the back.

“This again?”

“I’m serious,” you said, turning in the seat to face your brother. “I don’t know why you don’t just give him a chance.”

Eddie fished his keys out of his pocket and said, “Sorry if I don’t like the idea of Hawkins’ new bad boy parading my sister around.”

He shoved the key into the ignition and turned it, but the car just sputtered.

“He’s not parading me around,” you exclaimed, eyes narrowing.

Eddie stopped turning the key in the ignition and looked at you.

“Then what would you call it?”

“Being a proud boyfriend.”

Eddie rolled his eyes and then tried turning the key in the ignition again, but the van still did not start.

“Son of a bitch,” Eddie muttered before rubbing his hand along the steering wheel. “Come on, baby. Don’t do this now.”

Eddie turned the key again, and still nothing.

“Shit!” He shouted.

He let out a long groan and then placed his head on the steering wheel, repeatedly turning the key in the ignition. Your eyes went from your brother to the hood of the van and back until you started noticing smoke seep out the sides of the hood.

“Uh, Eddie?”

“Not now, Y/N. Please,” he said, forehead still resting on the steering wheel.

More puffs of white smoke began pouring out, and your eyes widened.

“No, Eddie,” you said, trying to slap his arm but too afraid to move your eyes from the smoke, “seriously.”

He sat up abruptly.

“I got this, okay? She’ll start up any second.”

Any second, the van could burst into flames, and you really didn’t want to be sitting in it when it did.

“Eddie!”

“What!?”

His hard stare was on you now, and you just pursed your lips and pointed out the front windshield.

“It’s smoking.”

Eddie’s head slowly turned to where you were pointing, and his face fell.

“Oh, fuck,” he said before struggling to unbuckle and get out of the driver’s side door.

You followed his lead and hopped out. But, just as you joined your brother, he popped the hood, and a large plume of smoke swallowed the two of you.

“Shit, shit, shit,” Eddie said as he waved his hands around frantically to clear the smoke.

You crossed your arms over your chest.

“I thought you got Uncle Wayne to look at this thing.”

Eddie turned on you.

“Y/N, I,” he stopped, shutting his eyes and pushing out a stream of air through his nose before looking at you again. “He’s been a little busy lately.”

You threw your arms into the air as Eddie moved to look under the hood.

“So, what now? You don’t know anything about cars.”

“Yeah,” Eddie grumbled, “I know that, Y/N.”

You stared at your brother as he aimlessly grabbed things under the hood until a loud car pulled up beside you. You would know that sound anywhere. The low purr of a 1979 Camaro. It was Billy. You turned to see him leaning out the driver’s side window, eyebrows furrowed.

“Hey, princess. You guys alright?”

A burst of tingles ran through your body. You knew that he could tell you weren’t alright. You were standing outside of a smoking vehicle, for crying out loud. You just shook your head.

“No,” you said, exasperated, and used your thumb to gesture back toward Eddie, who was still smacking things around under the hood, “my genius brother neglected to get our uncle to look at his van, and now it won’t start.”

Billy put his car in park.

“I can check it out if you want.”

“Yes.”

“No,” Eddie said at the exact same time.

You shot Eddie a look, and he reciprocated it, but before he had the chance to send Billy away, you turned back to your boyfriend with a saccharine smile.

“We’d really appreciate it.”

Billy got out of his car, and you followed behind him to where Eddie was standing by the van. He didn’t waste any time going to check under the hood. When he stood back up, sweat was beading on his forehead, and he had oil on his hands. You watched as he rubbed his hands down the length of his thighs, and at that moment, you so wished that you were not stranded in the school parking lot. He brushed his blonde hair from his face and sighed.

“Well, I figured out what your problem is. Your gasket is blown.”

You and Eddie both looked at Billy befuddled.

“So, what does that mean?” You asked, shaking your head a little.

He grinned and let out a breathy laugh, looking down at his feet and then back up at you.

“It means unless you want your van to catch on fire, you need to get a tow.”

Eddie ran his hands over his face and groaned.

“You gotta be fucking kidding me,” he mumbled.

Billy quirked a brow at you, then said, “Hey, I can give you guys a ride home.”

“Really?” You asked, and even you could hear the relief in your voice.

Billy walked over to you and wrapped his arm around your waist.

“Of course, baby. Anything for you.”

You turned to face Eddie, who looked visibly repulsed not only by Billy but also by the idea of him driving you two home. But it only took a minute of you staring daggers at him to realize that Billy was the only option. So, he just nodded at you before gathering both of your bags and following you to the passenger side. Eddie opened the door, and you went to climb into the backseat, but he grabbed your arm, stopping you.

“Woah,” he said, “what are you doing?”

You narrowed your eyes at him and looked at the backseat, then back at him.

“Getting in the backseat with Max.”

Eddie leaned a little closer to you, lowered his voice, and whispered, “But he’s your boyfriend.”

“And?” You asked before yanking your arm from his grip and sliding in next to Max.

Eddie grumbled something to himself before getting into the passenger seat and shutting the door. Billy double-checked that everyone was in the car, cranked his radio, then sped out of the parking lot.

Lunatic Fringe by Red Rider shook the car as Billy drove down the road. The windows were down, and yours and Max’s hair was a twisted and tangled mess from the wind rushing through it. Eddie continued to look from the radio to Billy and back, and you smiled. If there was one thing that would connect your boyfriend and brother, it was going to be music. Billy finally caught on that Eddie was staring at him, and he laughed.

“What?” He shouted over the music.

Eddie shook his head.

“Nothing. I just didn’t think you liked this kind of stuff.” He pointed to the radio.

“What?” Billy asked, “Good music?”

The two of them started laughing, and you could feel your heart warming at the sound. You never thought you’d see the day when your brother and Billy were actually getting along. A smile pulled at the corners of your lips, and you looked at Billy through the rearview. It took him a second, but when he finally looked back at you, he sent you a wink before turning his attention back to the road. You bit your bottom lip and then leaned forward onto the center console.

“Hey, babe, did I ever tell you that my brother is also in a band?”

Billy chuckled.

“You may have mentioned it before.” He looked at Eddie. “Guitar, right?”

Eddie’s eyebrows shot up.

“Yeah,” he said slowly, “you play?”

“No, no,” Billy said, shaking his head, “but I’ve come to appreciate a good guitar solo.”

You could tell that Eddie was impressed and trying to contain his excitement. He picked at the fray on his black jeans and said, “You should come watch us play sometime.” He lifted his head to look at Billy. “We, uh, we play at The Hideout every Tuesday night.”

Billy smiled at him and nodded.

“Yeah, man. I’ll stop by.”

For the rest of the car ride, no one spoke. The only thing filling the dead space was the music blasting from Billy’s speakers. When he finally reached the trailer, he came to a stop. Eddie grabbed his bag and hopped out. You gave Max a side hug and then shimmied out of the back. You leaned over the passenger seat and gave Billy a quick kiss before grabbing your bag and rushing off toward Eddie.

“So?” You asked as Eddie pulled out his house key.

“So, what?”

“He’s not that bad now, is he?”

The two of you entered the house, and Eddie tilted his head back and forth before turning to face you.

“I guess he’s…alright.”

But he shot you a goofy grin, and you knew he thought Billy was more than alright. You laughed as Eddie headed back to his room, shutting the door behind him. You plopped onto the couch, a feeling of elation filling your entire body. If all it took for your brother to finally warm up to Billy was a car ride, you would have slashed the van’s tires months ago. You laughed to yourself at the thought as you relaxed, knowing that they may not be friends quite yet, but at least they were on talking terms now.  

Tag List: @violetrainbow412-blog​ @pastel-abyss-x​

[kageyamatobiyogurt]

haikyuu boys being emo

a/n: in honor of myself going to an emo concert soon ~ here are my thoughts.

includes: bokuto, kageyama, tsukiishima, kenma, tendou

bokuto:

okay despite probably not being full fledged emo, i feel like i had to mention him

bokuto would probably be in “life is only despair” mode after a loss

mans fully sits in the back of the bus and leans his head against the windows while blasting whatever comes up when he searches “sad emo music playlist”

no one is allowed to sit next to him except for akaashi - MAYBE

he blasts whatever spotify offers in it’s cumulative playlist with this big pout on his face

this leads to him mainly knowing medium to slow paced songs but those with clearly heart-wrenching lyrics

bokuto also probably just knows songs, compared to being an actual fan of the bands who wrote them

mans is on the verge of TEARS when iris by the goo goo dolls comes on and he remembers how he missed that one spike that probably could’ve turned the game around PLSS

kageyama:

so much of kags’ life revolves around angst man

and i mean, he does almost have an emo fringe going for him LOL

but at the same time, i don’t really think kageyama would be one to make his music taste too big of a part of his personality - that’s what volleyball is. so you probably could t tell he was a little emo from the way he dresses.

(outside of a school uniform, mans probably lives in athleisure).

ain’t no way he didn’t manage to cope with music

i think we’re not surprised that he gets kinda angry sometimes so i feel like he might turn to a lot of music with screaming

when he discovered it, something about it felt kind of cathartic, like ‘here’s some guy screaming and voicing out my frustrations for me’

he also found comfort in the isolation that this kind of music talked about

after a frustrating (but productive practice) he probably listens to pierce the veil to let off some steam

(hinata wanted to walk home with him once but mans just kept walking out the door bc the music was so damn loud in his ear)

tsukishima:

this guy lmao

another relatively aNgStY bOy are we surprised

i think he would delve a lot more into the music he listens to and he’d listen to the most bands out of anyone here

he’s also shown a lot with his headphones so it’s a bigger part of his life compared to others

he’s a man of culture- one of his favorite band being my chemical romance because of the band’s theatricality but also tremendously well-written lyrics

i feel like his music taste would lightly influence how he dresses too

tsukishima probably owns a wide variety of black band tees, somewhat fitted black jeans, one very worn in pair of converse

but i doubt he’d wear everything together, but it would be mixed with all of his other clothes

like if you paid attention, you’d probably be able to figure out his music taste

he thought about getting a piercing once but backed out after seeing a piercing video

kenma:

he’d probably have a pretty broad range of bands he listens to

i feel like kenma would enjoy paramore and it’d lowkey influence what color he’d dye his hair

he also found music as an escape that he needed sometimes

kenma probably doesn’t listen to so much screaming so maybe he’d gravitate towards fall out boy and secondhand serenade

OH and he learns some ukulele because he gets into twenty one pilots at some point

just imagine kenma strumming along in his room aw

tendou:

maybe it’s because he’s my fave but i really think he’d get into all of this - the vibe would suit him SO WELL

he already has the red hair that he either styles up, but also looks SO GOOD when he just lets it hang down

he’s eccentric so i think he’s just hits shuffle and let’s spotify pick what he listens to

he just has a really big playlist filled with music from so many bands (and he’s still adding to it)

tendou isn’t so angsty but he likes how fired up music can get and how such a sick guitar solo feels like his bones are coming alive

my oh my do black skinny jeans look good on him - he cut the holes on the knees himself lol

DEFINITELY HAS PIERCINGS

mans got one of those side lip piercings and it’s over for anyone when he smirks he’s so damn hot

i think he’d go to the most concerts out of all the boys, he’s tall enough to be able to see the band wherever he is in the pit and he’s not so easily pushed when things get rowdy

definitely loves the feeling of the speakers blasting music into his soul and moshing with a crowd

(fun side fact: he gets ushijima to come to a concert once and mans sticks out from the crowd so badly. he doesn’t understand why the lead singer is screaming, is this music? whY did someone just push him? he ends up going to the back of the pit bc he can see anyway and it’s less violent)

[baka-monarch]

It’s A Small World: Prologue

Summery: Roman is Virgil’s high school bully, and finally regrets his actions on the last day of school. Virgil is a size shifter that is happy that he won’t ever have to see his high school bullies again... right?

TRIGGER WARNINGS: CUSSING, MENTIONED HOMOPHOBIA, ALCOHOL, SMOKING, PENIS MENTION, BULLYING

Virgil had never been the type of person to stand out, to be looked at in awe, or envious of. He had always stayed in the back and stayed quiet, nobody knew him as anything more than the Wannabe Emo. 

And he was perfectly happy keeping it that way.

At least until he got a scholarship to Hamilton University.

It was true that Virgil didn't have much of a talent, but when it came to writing he excelled. In fact, the few times that he'd reveled in attention were whenever he won a competition because of his writing. Before he was even a Senior he was taking college-level courses for his writing capabilities, and when he'd gotten his letter from Hamilton University about a scholarship his brother had decided it was time to celebrate. The plan was that on the last day of high school his brother Patton and their boyfriend would take him to a My Chemical Romance concert that just so happened to land on that same day.

At least, that was the plan.

●●●

Virgil sat in the back of class ebbing with excitement. It was the last class of the day and he could not wait to get it over with. His knee bounced anxiously as he watched the clock tick away, closer and closer to the bell of release. He wished it would go faster but with the teacher droning on and everyone being quite instead of being stupid, it made it seem like time was going much slower. Eventually he just released a tired sigh as he finally actually looked down at his paper to work, unfortunately at that same moment the bell finally rang making him jump in surprise. As everyone ran out of the classroom Virgil took a moment to collect himself before he grabbed his things and left, rushing to his locker.

Roman was skipping class before the bell rang. Him, the other jocks, and all the hot girls at school were hanging out in the boy’s bathroom getting busy. Chad had brought a Bluetooth speaker and was playing music from his Spotify playlist, while Heather had somehow snuck in alcohol, and Karen was passing around cigarettes and vapes. At the moment Roman was trying to avoid all of them, luckily Jerry and Tom were busy comparing penises, and although Roman wasn’t interested, watching them was better than getting drunk, high, or being around everyone who was drunk and high. Roman did have a few thoughts about seeing the males pantsless, but he dismissed them because he's straight, right? This party was meant to be a farewell to Roman, the most popular man at their high school, and yet, Roman himself hated the party but it was for him and his girlfriend was having fun, so he just couldn’t leave. So, Roman stuck to his little corner of the bathroom, waiting for the bell to ring. Luckily for him, it finally did and he rushed out of there with Heather merrily trailing behind him.

As Roman was leaving, Virgil was just finishing up getting everything out of his locker. Roman was ready to just leave and forget about the bullied emo all together, but Heather had other plans. Virgil jumped back as his locker was suddenly slammed shut, the bitchy, makeup covered face of the culprit standing where the door once was.

“What’s up emo freak.” Heather spat. Virgil glared at her, but he wasn’t in the mood to deal with a bitch today, so he just turned and went to try and walk away. “Nu uh, you little fucker. It’s time for you to get your farewell present! Isn’t that right Roman?” She held Virgil’s arms tightly behind his back, preventing him from moving as he was forced to face the jock. Virgil just focused on the ground silently as he waited for whatever was about to happen.

“C’mon Heather, it’s not worth it. Let’s just go home.” Roman tried to reason with her.

“Aw, Ro-Ro, y’know we can’t do that.” She whined. “He needs something to remember this day by, just like everyone else.” She said this in such a sickeningly sweet voice that Virgil wanted to gag.

“Like what? Heather, I really just wanna go home.” It was true, Roman was tired and just didn’t want to deal with emo fucker today.

“Well how about…” Heather took a few moments to think about it, looking Virgil over and making him shiver. Finally her eyes landed on a little piece of paper that was sticking out of Virgil’s pocket. “This!” She exclaimed as she pulled Virgil’s MCR concert ticket out of his hoodie.

“Hey!” Virgil cried out when he saw what she had, and finally started struggling.

“Woah, calm down emo. What the fuck is it?” Roman said, and Heather happily handed it to him as she held Virgil back.

“Let me go!” He struggled.

“My Chemical Romance?” Roman read the ticket. He didn’t know that they were in concert right now. Maybe if he got home fast enough he could get his own ticket?

“You mean that lame emo band!?” Heather cackled. Roman flinched at her response, they were his favorite band… he’d forgotten that they were seen as an emo thing.

“Uh, yeah…” Roman mumbled out. He took a moment to then look at emo freak in a new light. For the first time Roman noticed how his hoodie was hand made with amazing craftsmanship,  the small bit of makeup he was wearing was applied with the precision of an artist, and his purple fringe actually looked really cool. Why had Roman bullied this guy again?

 “Let’s tear it up.” Heather’s voice cut through Roman’s thoughts.

“What?” Was all Roman said as Virgil paused in his struggling enough to watch as Heather snatched the ticket out of Roman’s hands and tore it to shreds. At this point she had let go of Virgil, but it didn’t matter as he stared down at the shreds of paper that were once his ticket, he could feel hot tears forming in his eyes, not only that but his size seemed to get a little smaller. Roman looked back and forth between the once-was ticket and emo freak, full of regret. 

Heather cackled as Virgil finally snapped out of his trance and ran out the doors shoving his way past Roman. “That’s right! Run run run away you emo freak!” She yelled after him.

“Why would you do that?” Roman snapped at her.

“What? It’s not like it’s any worse than the things you’ve done to him.” She shrugged making Roman flinch. He had done some pretty bad shit to emo freak throughout high school. “Besides, it’s the last day of school, it’s not like you’ll ever see him again.” Roman shook his head angrily as he finally ran after emo freak. If they weren’t going to see each other again, he should at least try to apologize now.

As Roman burst through the school’s front doors he looked around, trying to find emo freak. Yet they were nowhere to be seen. “Shit…” He muttered. He’d fucked up. Now he could never take it back.

Virgil watched silently as the scene unfolded. He was surprised when Roman finally drove off without Heather, but it didn’t matter. No one could see Virgil right now. Why? Well because he was four inches tall hiding under a bush. This was a common occurrence, as Virgil was a size shifter, meaning that he could change how big or small he was. Unfortunately this ability was tied to his emotions, and having anxiety did not help that. Mainly because every time he had an attack he would shrink down as a flight response.

Luckily for Virgil his phone shrank down with him, so he sent a quick text to his older brother to come pick him up. He felt guilty for interrupting his brother from hanging out with their significant other, like they always did, but he didn’t really have much else to do. His brother was only a few minutes away so it didn’t take long for a black corvette (which he already knew belonged to his brother’s lover) to pull up.

Patton quickly got out of the passenger’s seat and approached the bush he knew Virgil was under, spotting his little brother immediately.  “Oh Virgil…” He said sympathetically. “What happened?” Patt carefully crouched down and offered Virgil his hand with a practiced ease.

Virgil quickly clamored onto his brother’s hand as he explained everything. Patton comforted him as he carried him to the car. Janus (Patton’s lover) had long since installed a tiny car seat in their cup holder for situations like this. They waited patiently for Virgil to get situated before they started driving again. “You can have my ticket kiddo, and you can go with Janus.”

Jan nodded. “Or you can have my ticket, whichever you prefer, kid.” Janus conceded.

“I’ll go with you Jan, I know that Pat doesn’t like MCR that much.” Virgil shrugged.

“And look on the bright side, kid, it’s the last day of school. You don’t ever have to worry about those fuckers again.” Jan said.

“Janus!” Patton scolded as he smacked their arm, making them chuckle.

Yeah, Virgil though. I don’t ever have to see them again, right?

chapter one

[poptartmochi]

tagged by sarah @skogenflicka- i am so sorry that this is two entire months late but thank you for the tag!! also happy valentine’s day! 😊

rules: tag people you would like to know / catch up with

last song: omg omg it was Chaining Intention, sung by Miku!!!! 😁😁 this song has been hanging onto the fringes of my mind for like. a Genuine Decade, bc it was one of my favorite songs as a kid! anyways I was going insane bc I’ve wanted to listen to it again for a long time now, but I never knew the lyrics and I’d forgotten its name T T I tried looking up all sorts of wacky word combinations for the title and I even sat through an insanely long Miku playlist to see if I could find it, to no avail! 🥺 I was so defeated that I couldn’t find it + that the only thing I remembered beyond the sound of the melody was the darn music video.... BUT THEN it dawned on me that maybe the music video could help me! bc it featured the 😨 LAT version of Miku’s MMD model 😨 (this is ingrained in my brain bc that specific model DEVASTATED the mmd community when it dropped, there was so much oversaturation lmaoo!!!), so i literally looked up ‘lat miku’ and it was the third fucking video in.. sarah when I tell you i almost screamed when i saw it, i Mean It ;w;

last movie: hm..... I don’t think I’ve seen anything since the semester ended, so probably the documentary for my jazz class? which.. girl help I have never found myself missing a long-form documentary like I’ve been missing Ken Burns’ Jazz...... 🥺🥺

currently watching: the original dragon ball with my brother! :D I somehow fell into an old AU i was writing around two years ago? but it’s difficult to make any actual headway with it (although.. do i ever make headway with my AU’s 👁️👁️@ sergio 😳) because i don’t remember Anything!! originally I was going to rewatch Z, because that’s what I’m mainly working with, but I’ve never really seen the original so we said fuck it and started from the very top :D

currently reading: tragically nothing 😔😔 getting ready to move is super exhausting so I don’t have the mental energy to sit down and read anything super long-form.. there’s so many books i want to read once we’ve moved and i have the time to Be!

currently craving: when I was a kid in Kuwait, we used to get these hard candies that were strawberry creme-flavored? it’s not often that I crave them but somebody rb’d a post about Valentine’s Candy xoxo earlier that reminded me of them and now my heart Yearns... it’s Maddening bc I haven’t been able to find them or anything that comes close to how good they were in the States T T

tagging @ghostcity @cowboykurapika1 @glasses-n-freckles @ebosu and @khatulim (if you’re down!)

[sodomygf]

got tagged by @degenerate-perturbation to talk about Women and i was like man. i never remember shit off the top of my head. then i wrote down some women on a sticky note and managed to sort it all out. not really a list of my top ten favorites as much as a list of Girls I Enjoy. Women I Appreciate.

1. Sera - Dragon Age. sera my beloved. she’s my absolute favorite dragon age character and the fact that a fringe group of weirdos are so insistent upon hating her only makes me love her more. she’s adorable and i think about her constantly. singlehandedly makes inquisition my favorite game. i’m down that bad.

2. Meg - Hades. HOT. i liked meg from the moment i saw her and i will fully admit that a huge part of it is me finding her attractive. i also just really like her and zagreus’s dynamic. i like these two exes feeling out their relationship after one comes to grow into himself as a person.

3. Sumi & Chizuru - Rent-a-Girlfriend. since these two are from the same trashy anime i figured i’d just slap them down here together. on a personal level, i really like sumi because her design and personality are soooo cute. and she’s super sweet. on a meta level i like chizuru because she really is the only option for that simp boy we’re all meant to project on. she’s literally the perfect girl. i adore her.

4. Risa Koizumi - Lovely Complex. mostly on here because lovely complex is my comfort show. risa is peak dumbass representation and i like her so much. i think about her and otani all the time. also i just like that lovely complex is an anime that frames risa as more of a pursuer than a passive figure in her love story. it’s nice.

5. Haru - Beastars. this rabbit FUCKS and there’s nothing you can do about it. i think haru being like, canonically promiscuous and into that because of the power it gives her as a #short queen made me experience some sort of Gender. and also just surprised me because i figured it would be a bev marsh situation (another Woman i like who did not happen to make the list) but it wasn’t! what a legend. i have a whole playlist about her, actually.

6. Sabran & Ead - Priory of the Orange Tree. love this book. these lesbians made me so insane. the tenderness of That One Scene that lives in my head rent free... man.

7. Kazusa - O Maidens in Your Savage Season. all the girls in the series are good but i personally projected onto kazusa. i also projected on hongo, but in a sort of negative way. when women have self image issues my brain is like wow.... relateable.

8. Eleanor Shellstrop - The Good Place. i’ve been meaning to rewatch the good place forever because i just really love the whole show. eleanor is one of those characters who really charms me with humor and her growth as a person makes me kind of emotional. and since i’m talking about her i guess it’s pertinent to say. i really really love chidi, so she probably would’ve gotten the spot due to chidi proximity regardless.

9. Maru - Stardew Valley. this science girl is so underrated. we’ve been married for 2 years and have 2 children on my main save, and i thank yoba for this every day. she’s so sweet and smart and charming.

10. Entrapta - She Ra. i like women who are smarter than me. entrapta is my favorite character in the whole show because of that and her questionable morals. i love a queen who will do anything in the pursuit of knowledge.

11. Violet - Violet Evergarden. bonus because i haven’t really stopped thinking about this sad sad girl since i started watching the show with ed. we’re not at the end yet but honestly it’s got so much in it that i like and violet is part of that. her slowly growing to recognize and understand her own feelings (and suffering) moved me, a curmudgeonly little guy. also i think she is an allegory for jesus christ.

honorable mention.

Daisy Tonner - The Magnus Archives. everyone has to have their fucking hot takes on the cops from the magnus archives and it’s like can you people shut up. saw a long ass post about if it’s moral to write daisy as butch or femme and as a certified black person who does not like cops i wish you people would stop being so performatively woke about this podcast and i hope the fact that it’s officially ended will help you all heal from terminally online disease. also i always pictured her being really hot. i love a morally objectionable fake woman.

talk about women or Else. (there is no else. just if you want to rant about girls i guess) @weredilf, @hyperactiveadhd, @co27, @tazwikia, kathryn if you’re reading this it won’t let me tag you’re blog but you’re also included. begone.

[hawkbucks]

Joke’s on you, I’m going to list my favorite quotes anyway (besides the ones from the foreword that I’ve already listed) because they are Very Important: 

“Like any normal nineteen-year-old, I earned both of my master’s degrees on my own merits.” 

“Yinsen bought me the time I needed to recharge the suit, but the cost was his own life. I owe him big time, and I will never be able to repay him.” “Iron Man was born... and my world would never be the same!” 

“Don’t let the smooth talk fool you. Deep down, I’ll always be a tech geek, more comfortable alone in a workshop than surrounded by celebs at a gala fundraiser.” 

“You don’t always have to fight villains to save lives. That’s why I started the Maria Stark Foundation in memory of my mother. It may not be the branch of my company that gets the most public attention, but in my opinion, it’s where we do the most good.”

“Didn’t see [my dad] an awful lot, so Mom took me to visit every day. I grew up around Stark Industries. Or maybe Stark Industries grew up around me? 

“Instead of blowing up the world, why not help build a better one instead?”

“Over the years, I managed to develop a small core of people who I could trust implicitly. Strip away my high-tech suit, my fancy toys, even my checkbook, and I know these guys would still be on my side. They’ve become the family I thought I lost.” 

“Rhodey’s have me back for as long as I can remember. where as my stalwart best friend or flying by my side as War Machine, he’s always been there for me. We’ve been brothers-in-arms from the moment I first saved his life. He’s since repaid the debt more times than I can remember. There’s no truer friend than Rhodey. And his middle name’s Rupert. Don’t tell him I told you.” 

“I may have inherited a fortune from my parents, but the very best thing they left me was [Jarvis].” 

“I thank the heavens for Pepper every day. I’m nominating her for sainthood. Seriously.” 

“[Happy] may have been a little rough around the edges, but that was one of the things we all loved about him. Especially Pepper. Those two crazy kids were meant for each other and, even though things sometimes got rocky between them, their love was unlike anything I’d ever seen. Happy was a huge part of my world. And unfortunately is was my world--the world of Iron Man--that eventually got him killed. I’ll never forget that. And I’ll fight every day to make sure it never happens to anyone else I love.” 

“Guys like The Ghost and Spymaster will stop at nothing to worm their way into a company’s infrastructure and dig up our darkest secrets to sell to the highest bidder. Which reminds me... I really need to delete my web browser’s search history...”

“[Janice] was one of the great loves of my life, and she lost hers because of me. I don’t think I’ve ever forgiven myself.” 

“I have a soft spot for the bad girls.”

“[Rumiko and I] turned into something quite real, at least for a while. As usual, I got lost in my work... and I ended up losing Ru in the process.” 

“When I really get down to work, I don’t have time to worry about what I look like. Maximum comfort yields maximum productivity. A pair of Chucks, well-worn jeans, and a T-shirt will do just fine.” 

“Oddly enough, it’s the smallest stuff I get sentimental about. A watch and some engraved cufflinks. Dad left them on the nightstand the evening the accident happened. Collectors ask me about the watch once a month. It’s never going anywhere.”

“Easy listening is not on my playlist nor is mindless head banging. Classic rock, punk, and indie new wave are more my thing. I like the funky relaxes atmosphere in the ‘fringe’ and ‘artsy’ areas of my favorite big cities... preferably before they get gentrified and become infested with hipsters.” 

“So any joint that dispenses concentrated caffeine and has free Wi-Fi will have me warming its bench seats sooner or later.” 

“If somebody if bumped back on the waiting list because I showed up with no reso, I’ll gladly pick up their tab and add a nice bottle of a Pinot Noir.” 

“[blueprint notes] Reprogram J.A.R.V.I.S to agree with me more often.” 

“Still, mad respect for the classics.”

“...this suit boldly went where no Iron Man had gone before.” 

“When designed some of my earlier armors, I always felt like something was missing. I couldn’t put my finger on it. Was it a faster core processor? A more powerful repulsor? A better defense system? You’d think. But instead, what did I add? A nose.” 

“Jet. Powered. Roller. Skates. Yeah. You heard me.” 

“My repulsor beams could stop a charging rhino in its tracks. Theoretically, of course. Rest assured, I’ve done no testing on actual rhinos. That would just be cruel.” 

“There are people who say I am just a glorified machine operator. They think my armor is the real star of the show and that anyone could strap in and do my job just the same. Those people probably think that Jimi Hendrix was just a guitar player, or that Mario Andretti was just a driver.” 

“[Has an entire section dedicated towards his science friends called “SCIENCE BROS!”]”

“Everything you learn in life can help inform your hardest decisions. Sometimes, though, the answers you can’t find in your head you can find in your soul. Or on Wikipedia.” 

“Soon after, we came across the flash-frozen body of Captain America. We thawed him out, and he joined the team as well. Don’t tell him I said so, but it was one of the best days of my life. That’s when things started to click. Suddenly, the Avengers weren’t just another experiment to me. They were something bigger. Something important.” 

“We’ve had a ton of different members over the years, but Cap and I have always held steady at the core of the Avengers...” 

“...there’s no shame in relying on others to help you get the job done. Sometimes, there comes a day when even Earth’s Mightiest Heroes have to join forces to face the threats that no single hero can withstand. That’s when the call goes out. That’s when the Avengers assemble! (Ooh. Did you just get goosebumps, too?)”

“Whether you’re in charge of thousands of employees or a select squad of heroes, leadership is a pretty heavy burden. Choosing the path that is best for the most in the long run can come with major downsides in the short term. That’s the real test of your character--whether you can make the tough choice despite what everybody else thinks of you.” 

“Life is good. I plan to enjoy every minute. And I know what I’ll be wearing as I do.” 

[mindctrlaltdel]

Random Reviews: Mulholland Drive

This movie is BASIC INSTINCT, written and directed by Salvador Dali.

***

Recently, I watched MULHOLLAND DRIVE for the first time for my friend Shawn Eastridge's podcast, MISSING FRAMES (www.thenerdparty.com/missingframes/episode-103-mulholland-drive).

As I watched this odd, funny, disturbing, interesting flick, I took the following notes. Is it, as some critics say, the BEST FILM OF THE 21ST CENTURY? Here's an inside look at my viewing experience as I mulled over MULHOLLAND DRIVE...

[PRESS PLAY]

I love how the first five minutes is basically a bad late 90's Gap commercial, all swing dancing, no point...

The Mulholland Drive sign is calling to us. The street, Mulholland Drive, is Bali Hai for perverts.

Justin Theroux gets top billing over Naomi Watts??

I gotta admit, I saw one of the movie's original posters and thought "Naomi Watts AND the lady from the first MEN IN BLACK is in this? It's the triumphant return of Linda Fiorentino." When I DIDN'T see her name in the opening credits, I was disappointed. She's NO Linda Fiorentino... for this role, she's even better. AND she's a countess (seriously, look it up). Oh, and Robert Forster shows up for 10 minutes.

Not-Linda Fiorentino has some hustle in her for someone who just survived a horrible head on collision.

I like how the street signs kind of tell us where we are and what kind of world we're in. It's like a surreal, dramatic version of that Californians SNL sketch.

You mean to tell me that the red-headed older woman didn't see not-Linda Fiorentino under her kitchen table? UnbeLIEVable.

Holy crap, the wide-eyed guy in Winky's - he plays Jimmy Barrett, the comedian in MAD MEN... and MAD MEN is an interesting connection here, because everyone talks in this measured, paced deliberate way throughout that series, kind of similar to how the characters usually speak in the David Lynch productions I've seen... When I started watching MAD MEN, I thought the actors were purposely directed to speak that way, so everything to seem more "real" as opposed to that fast-talking, old-Hollywood style that you'd expect to see from outspoken, big idea-types. I imagined that Matt Weiner wanted people to seem - at least to modern audiences - the way people actually were - particularly, the inhabitants of the intelligent and cerebral world of ad men, working behind the scenes, on the fringes of show business. But then Jimmy Barrett, an old-timey comedian ALSO spoke that way. And it just didn't seem authentic to me. Anyway, back to THIS movie...

OH and that dingy woman behind the dumpster! She's like if Captain Howdy moved out West and got all LA on us. Is that Cloris Leachman covered in mud? And the music... for some reason, there's nothing scarier than the sound of an HVAC vent on full blast. (According to this article, www.vulture.com/2014/10/mulholland-drives-evil-hobo-breaks-her-silencio.html,the actress who played Evil Hobo #1 said of her audition process: "I don’t mean to brag, but David Lynch said he was looking for the most incredible face he could find. I actually met him at a Twin Peaks party, and he was like, 'Look at that face!'")

I love the X-Files-style synth strings that play over Naomi Watts (Betty) and gram-gram (Irene) as they walk through the hotel, I mean the airport... Aw, these two old people love Betty. What a different life she's living than that countess who's not Linda Fiorentino who's squatting in that redhead's apartment that Betty's about to move into.

Even then, Naomi had a good American accent. (Although I learned she's technically British but split her time between England and Australia), those Australians are great at spitting out neutral American sounds. But once I learned that Betty is supposed to be Canadian, I was very disappointed. It's not THAT authentic. Where are her "Aboots"? And she didn't put maple syrup on anything in this whole movie.

Oh my God, are Irene and her husband, riding in this towncar, ALSO going to get held up, like not-Linda Fiorentino at the beginning of the movie? Oh okay, they're not. We just followed them for no reason other than to see that they look happier than an old couple in a Cialis commercial. I guess meeting Betty really improved their sex life or something.

Coco - of course she's a fading hollywood starlet... AHHH, Coco is played by Ann Miller - good for her. She's basically that kooky old landlady from SEINFELD, the one who worked with the Three Stooges that Kramer met when he went to LA. Look at all these connections!

"Prize-fighting kangaroo who shits all over the courtyard" - do you think Naomi Watts is going to come out and say, "as an Australian, I was actually offended by this line, but I was scared into silence by that power-hungry monster, David Lynch."

The countess - who now goes by "Rita" - does kind of look like Rita Hayworth. I like the connections to old Hollywood and to noirs and how it's all wrapped together. Rita Hayworth is also a redhead, like Betty's aunt. She's of Spanish descent as well... and the actress playing Rita in this movie is of Mexican descent... Connections, connections.

I love that this casting session is basically run by a deep state shadow organization with a weird waiter in a red blazer... This is how Disney cast WandaVision.

HAHAHAH "That is one of the finest espressos in the world sir!" - this is DEFINITELY how Disney casts their movies. And Justin Theroux is the only man with integrity in this room! Does anyone have any class in this town!? They don't even validate his parking.

This is my favorite movie about making movies since BOWFINGER. And I may not be lying. And somehow less weird than THE ARTIST.

Is everyone gonna start killing each other over Ed's famous black book? This is oddly funny.

"Something bit me bad!" This incredibly long fight scene between the blond guy and secretary... it reminds me of the Uma Thurman/Daryl Hannah trailer fight in KILL BILL VOL. 2 but with less snakes.

These closeups of lingering looks on Rita's cash-filled purse are great... She's pulling wads of cash out of that purse one at a time, like Leslie Nielsen pulling eggs out of that blond lady in AIRPLANE!

I want to know what direction David Lynch gave that braless woman who's following the blond assassin around. It's like she's doing an acting exercise... like you know, when you're told to fill the space... "walk around the room, and clear your head. And now you're walking really fast. And now you're slow. NOW, imagine what it would be like to walk with your nose as the furthest point in front of you. Lead with your nose..." And David Lynch did that and told the braless woman to lead with her chest.

Justin Theroux is basically Robert Downey Jr.'s character from BOWFINGER, except NOW, he's the protagonist.

Betty is loving Rita's amnesia a bit too much. If this were my life, Rita would be the most interesting thing to happen to me too. Hell, if I was from Ontario, getting off at LAX would rock my world.

When Justin Theroux enters his glass-walled home to find his wife with another man, well... Justin Theroux may never star in something like HOBO WITH A SHOTGUN, but I can definitely picture him in YUPPIE WITH A GOLF CLUB.

That slinky theme song playing in Justin Theroux's/Laraine's house is a song that I actually listen to in my tiki, lounge playlist - to give you a hint of my music tastes. What I listen to for fun, Billy Ray Cyrus puts on to drown out his love-making.

By the way, BILLY RAY CYRUS!!! WHAT? Is this how Miley was conceived??? I think yes.

Pink paint in a jewelry box! This is much better than the usual throwing-all-his-belongings-out-a-second-story-apartment-window-scene that happens in every other movie.

I wouldn't be THAT excited if I learned MY name was Diane Selwin. BUT the sexxxual tension with the waitress Diane at the diner is palpable!

So, not-Linda Fiorentino has amnesia. How does she know that answering machine is NOT her voice!?

Justin Theroux/Adam Kesher's wife is very aggressive with the large man who's so dedicated to finding Adam Kesher that he keeps calling Adam's name in vain like the secretary in my doctor's office.

I watched this movie in pieces, the first half late at night. The second half the next morning. In between, while sleeping, I had a dream where Betty and Rita were looking over a map and any time one of their hands brushed over another, their hands would turn gold. As if this was a stylistic choice made by the filmmaker directing my dream to show that there's some kind of deeper relationship between these two women. So I've started dreaming in Lynch.

I like how this film is so utterly connected to not only Lynch's subconscious, but the audience's as well. Lynch is TAPPED IN. I don't always love when a film goes all in with a surreal style, because sometimes that's just a cover for something lacking in the storytelling department. But I do feel there's more to it here, in MULHOLLAND DRIVE.

The hooded woman, Louise... I feel like I've run into her on the streets of New York. A Louise will ALWAYS find a way to give you a portent of doom that ruins your day. Friggin’ Louise.

This movie is so moody, you really have to be in the mood to watch it.

There's something magical and prophetic about the cowboy, like he's the seer that the old general sees on the eve of battle... Also, I love how the lead female role in Justin Theroux's movie is his sword of destiny. There's a glitz and gleam and nostalgia to Old Hollywood that naturally gives this movie, set in "modern" Hollywood," a total fantasy vibe.

Hahaha that "You're still here?" scene rehearsal between Betty and Rita is an excellent transition.

James Karen - the real estate guy from POLTERGEIST - is handling casting! "He moved the headshots but he didn't cast the bodies!!"

The casting direction: "Don't play it for real until it gets real." It's interesting how the characters, who work in the "business," seem to control their reality. Betty seems unsure of where the scene is going, then she gets into it. And it really speaks to her conversion from a bright-eyed new arrival to someone who surrenders to the darker impulses of the city.

HEAVY BREATHING.

Ugh friggin' Bob...

I love how Lynnie, the casting director, pulls the rug out from under that scene. There's always a jaded casting person who totally wrecks any good feelings about every audition. It's a thing.

David Lynch uses nostalgia and a latent love for Hollywood to draw the characters (and us) into his world and then subverts our expectations. A lot.

Why is the screen test just a lip-synching contest? ...I think it feeds into the nostalgia element for the movie at large but it seems like a waste of studio resources here. Early-aughties Hollywood spending, amirite?

Rita's reaction to finding the body is played very much like the reaction a character would have in an older film... The horror! The fear! The silent gaping terror while possessed with the inability to scream. I was watching the original KING KONG before this (which is may be a sign from the universe that I had to watch this Naomi Watts vehicle, as she starred in the remake), and specifically remember the scene where the director Carl Denham is coaching Ann Darrow/Fay Wray on how to act in a horror film - "now look up, and you see it, you see it in all its horror. And your jaw drops and you try to scream but you're so frozen in terror that you can't!" - I imagine that's what Lynch is doing to not-Linda Fiorentino off-camera as they filmed this scene.

Uh-oh, Rita is single-white femal'ing Betty now... She doesn't have a personality of her own, so she's going to take Betty's.... And now we're just getting NUDE with each other. This erotic thriller immediately turned from skintillating to Skinemax.

"I'm in love with you" - is Betty just saying that to convince herself? It feels more lusty than real. Betty's so bright-eyed and bushy tailed. Rita is gonna chew her up and spit her out!

I like the shot when they're sleeping together and, as they rest, their faces overlap thanks to the perspective of the framing. How much of the same person are they becoming? Where does one personality start and the other end?

The weird 2am theater. How'd Rita and Betty find this place? I love how this pop-up slam-poetry reading in this opera house is as terrifying to Rita and Betty as finding the dead body.

So Betty starts convulsing in her seat and then the poet disappears in a kind of old-style, cinematic I'm disappearing effect. I dig it.

Wait... is this a mysterious, magical show that just appears in LA, like Hamunaptra, the City of the Dead, that town in THE MUMMY that only shows up at sunrise on the third day or something like that? Or is this just a poorly attended Spanish-language talent show that could only afford to book this theater at 2am on a Thursday?

I love that Betty and Rita are tearing up over Rebekah Del Rio's performance (Rebekah Del Rio is a real person, by the way). Then, Rebekah faints as her voice keeps singing - is NOTHING real? Has Betty totally given into this weird world to the point that she doesn't really know what's authentic and what's fake anymore OR was Betty fake before she got to LA so it was easy for her to get acclimated.

This movie is like THE MATRIX, from the perspective of characters who only took the blue pill and didn't look back.

OOOH, Betty has the box and Rita has the key! But the box is empty except maybe its the Gom Jabbar pain-box from DUNE. Is David Lynch using MULHOLLAND DRIVE as an excuse to make good on his promise to produce a good version of DUNE.

WAIT A SECOND, the cowboy knows the dead girl? Does this even matter?

Now, wait ANOTHER second. Is Betty performing or DREAMING when she's Diane or is something else going one??

What's the BLUE KEY doing there?

"Two Detectives"??? Is she talking about Betty and Rita OR Robert Forster and the pudgy guy? OR someone else entirely - the two guy's from Winky's???

The movie became more interesting the moment the perspective shifted to "Diane" and "Camilla." When that happened, Naomi Watts really amped up her performance... reaching a level of intensity we hadn't seen since Betty's audition... it does take 2 hours to reach that point.... But then, when Betty and Rita are topless on the couch, I couldn't tell who they were supposed to be until Rita/Camilla called her "Diane."

Wait, now Rita's acting?? OH, so Rita was an actress? And Diane wasn't? Or Betty looks exactly like Diane?

The weird shifts in focus. The sad masturbating. This is the most depressing soft-core ever made!

Did Betty get killed and have amnesia too?

They take a shortcut to Eddie's house which looks EXACTLY like where Rita/Camilla was taken at the beginning of the movie by the hitmen in the towncar before that wild accident with those teenagers made her life weirder... OR less weird. You be the judge.

IS this a flashback or the future. Eddie and Camilla are having an affair?

MY MOTHER? COCO - what's real and what isn't????

The jitterbug competition.... Diane/Naomi wanted the lead so bad, Camilla got the part but in Mulholland Drive, Naomi is the star.

Then, Camilla is kissing that other blond actress who Betty watched screen test...

MULHOLLAND DRIVE is just David Lynch telling us that LA is a place for lust and jealousy and no matter what, purity gets ruined.

WHAT, the blond waitress is BETTY? And Diane hires the blond guy, who's officially labeled as a hitman.

Diane is also from Canada...

Are Diane and Betty just different versions of the same people in nearby parallel universes? I certainly HOPE so. This is too much insanity for ONE universe to handle.

The blue key will be found where the blond guy told Diane. Okay, that makes sense. But if this were to mirror real life, the key was in her hand the WHOLE time!

OH, and hobo-Cloris Leachman comes back... AND she's holding the blue box/Gom Jabbar... WHY the hell did those two old people wander out of that paper bag??? Do they represent longstanding guilt? Seems like it. Because they've just crept into Diane's apartment.

MULHOLLAND DRIVE is almost silly to the point of pretentiousness at points - at least with the last word to be uttered on screen - "silencio." That said, it does evoke the HAMLET line: "And the rest is silence," so THAT's poetic.

Sadly, Robert Forster was barely in this movie...

Oh, and Lee Grant played Louise - the old-Hollywood connections keep coming!

I can't believe this movie was intended to be a pilot?

***

Now, some final notes:

On the swapping of characters and relationships in the last 30 minutes -- my first thought was that Betty/Diane and Rita/Camilla look similar and/or they're connected by a parallel universe, and the diner is like the central hub between worlds, and hobo-Cloris Leachman is the gatekeeper between the two worlds... I buy the "dream world" explanation that some critics espouse, that's something I considered myself as I watched. But I'm not sure I believed Betty is Diane's dream version of herself. Also, I think David Lynch has a feeling about how everything fits together, yet I don't know if he's even settled on an explanation for everything. He just trusted his subconscious and he's so confident in his latent abilities, that we trust him to show us everything we need to see and take us everywhere we need to go.

I enjoy how it's a surrealist answer to SUNSET BOULEVARD. I hope in 2050, someone makes "The 405" really tying all these movies and Los Angeles roads together.

MULHOLLAND DRIVE is weird but good. Still, I don't know if, to me, it's more weird than good. It's also funny. But is it funny because it's weird or because it's actually, genuinely funny? Are these questions David Lynch actually wants me to ask or does he make it weird on impulse to cover for the fact that the film is simply just weird and based entirely on impulse? MULHOLLAND DRIVE is almost like a parody of a film noir, made by an inter-dimensional alien life-form who studied a bunch of movies from the 40's through the 90's but doesn't have a full grasp on human behavior, and DESPITE THAT, it's more of an emotional experience than a logical one. It's somewhere in between. It's self-indulgent in a way but also very giving. It's a paradox wrapped in an oxymoron wrapped in an enigma wrapped in a coffee-stained napkin covered in cigarette ash locked in a small, blue box.

***

Summing it up: I don't think there's a world where this movie would get a perfect score from me. Because ultimately, for all it's interesting and exciting moments, it's more of a passion project for David Lynch than a piece of entertainment for the audience, no matter how entertaining it may be. To me, it's a vision board more than it is a complete film. And yet, it IS a complete EXPERIENCE. And there's nothing wrong with that.

All of that said, I know David Lynch doesn't really like to give viewers a clear cut, traditional narrative. So, I had a feeling the mystery was just that, a mystery. Or even moreso, the FEELING of a mystery. It's not about where we're going, it's about the journey to the destination. And while the general atmosphere is moody and evocative and often powerful, MULHOLLAND DRIVE plays more like a 2.5 hour piece of music than a cohesive narrative. Maybe that's the best thing about it.

In the distant future, when our way of speaking has become as archaic as the words of Shakespeare are to us, it's the feeling and emotions and images of movies like MULHOLLAND DRIVE that will still have a timeless impact on the future audiences who view them.

[fnniganthomas]

                  ❝ in my mind I am eloquent; I can climb intricate scaffolds of                      words. but when I open my mouth, everything collapses. ❞

{ cis man, he/him } ❝ icarus is forever deemed the boy who flew too close to the sun and got burned. to me, he is just a boy too enthralled by beauty to care whether or not it could hurt him. ❞ huh, who’s TAYLOR ZAKHAR PEREZ? no, you’re mistaken, that’s actually LEANDER FINNIGAN-THOMAS. he is a 23 year old HALF-BLOOD wizard who is a TATTOO ARTIST. he is known for being RETICENT, SELF-CONSCIOUS, STUBBORN, INARTICULATE, and PERSUADABLE but also TRUSTING, SYMPATHETIC, EARNEST, PERCEPTIVE, and QUICK-THINKING, so that must be why he always reminds me of the song EPITAPH BY HIPPO CAMPUS and THE SMELL OF HOMEMADE BROWNIES BAKING; TECHNICOLOR PAINT STAINS ON EVERYTHING YOU OWN; A SKY GONE GREEN WITH PROMISED RAIN; WORN FLANNELS YOU’RE HAPPY TO LET OTHERS BORROW; A LUMP IN YOUR THROAT FROM THE WORDS YOU SWALLOW. i hear he is aligned with THE ORDER OF THE PHOENIX, so be sure to keep an eye on him. { zoe, 22, cst, she/her }  [ leander is adopted. ]

ADDITIONAL MATERIALS:   leander’s playlist, stats page, & pinterest board    CHARACTER PARALLELS:   jason mendoza (the good place), chidi anagonye (the good place), ty lee (atla), finn (star wars), troy barnes (community), brittany pierce (glee), ponyboy curtis (the outsiders), aang (atla) 

one.

there was no real doubt in anyone’s mind that leander was his fathers’ son. even the two of them had no trouble seeing bits of the other in him. 

dean could be heard calling leander seamus’ son when he ran into the side table holding lit candles and set several wooden picture frames ablaze. seamus returned the favor and referred to leander as dean’s son when he walked into leander’s room and saw he’d upended several jars of paint on the floor. to this day, none of them could really say if he’d upended the jars on purpose or not.

leander liked to think it was on purpose, even as he proclaimed his innocence every time the family told the story over laughter-filled dinners. proclaiming his innocence was just part of the way that story got told and he couldn’t go breaking tradition. really, he liked the way the rainbow of colors was still burrowed into the grooves of the wood and the slats between floorboards, even after countless attempts at cleaning the last of it. a part of him wondered if that hadn’t been an early sign of magic; he knew that that paint washed easily out of his hair and off his closes, but it stuck stubbornly to the floor right where he liked it. 

the colors on the floor nearly matched the technicolor quilt that lay on top of his bed year-round. he liked when things matched like that, almost by accident; like the world liked when things looked pretty as much as he did. he kinda hoped that was one of his first bits of magic; it felt fitting. he said as much to his gran once and had his hair ruffled for his trouble.

two.

when he was a child, he was always elbow deep in some messy thing. it wasn’t that he had a knack for causing trouble  —  he just had such a hard time saying no to trouble when it came calling. he had a hard time saying no to anything that came calling.

that was probably why trouble was always calling him. it knew he was an easy mark.

he made friends easily as a child, when things were easier and no one seemed to mind or care that he had such a hard time finding the words for things. leander was too polite to voice the blame out loud, but he was convinced that his friends growing up were at least half behind all the messes he got into.

the other kids around him might’ve been better at causing messes, but leander made up for it by being a mess. he was always having a crisis as a kid  —  his stuffed dragons were just ravaging the block city, dad, but what about the finger puppet people formerly houses in that block tower? do they even sell dinosaur insurance?? why didn’t I think of the implications here …

he and his sister played knights a lot, with toy swords and helmets modeled after the suits of armor in hogwarts  (dean asked seamus if that wasn’t a little much, when they bought them; they were a few years out from school, after all, they didn’t care that the helmets were accurate  — )   and leander always wondered about the ramifications of two knights fighting each other. shouldn’t they be friends, he thought? she always took his ensuing rambling full of hypothetical knight-schisms as opportunity to knock him flat backwards.

he was a needy kid  —  he always had questions at his lips, a thousand things he wanted to say. it took him forever to find the way to say them, though; leander hated feeling any negative thing, but he was used to frustration turned inward. it was his least favorite feeling, and one he was all too accustomed to. even now, leander was never quite sure what to do with his words. his mind was an easy enough place for him to navigate, and he loved being there for others when they needed someone to listen.

but whenever he tried talking himself wires got crossed and nothing came out how he wanted it to.

three.

he’d always been more quiet than he’d have liked to be, because he did actually have a lot to say. by the time he was nearly hogwarts-aged, he’d mostly forced himself to get over his hang-ups around his family. they poked good-natured fun at him, but he knew they’d always give him as much time as he needed to phrase a sentence or find a word. he could be assured that some of the other kids he’d grown up around would know that he just took a while to say what he really meant, too.

it was the thought of the castle, so full of strangers and professors he didn’t know, that scared him. getting sorted into ravenclaw scared him even more. he knew he didn’t always sound smart, and it worried him that others would listen to him and decide that he wasn’t, actually, smart enough to be a ravenclaw. he knew that he was smart, that he had things of value to offer to conversations. he was just so bad at getting them out the way he wanted to.

he stayed quiet for a while, even knowing he didn’t actually want to be quiet.

whenever he tried to articulate that point to other people though, it tended not to go as well as it did in his head  —  only proving his point. one of the prefects his first year rolled her eyes, said, ‘if you want to be less quiet, just say more, leander.’ but it wasn’t that easy, for him. he had a lot to say but had trouble finding the words for all those things. he could usually carry polite conversation just fine; fool people into thinking he knew what he was doing. but anything more than that required his total focus, and still was rarely quite right.

he bit down on half-formed questions because he thought it was better to not know some things if it meant he didn’t have to see people grow annoyed at his fumbling words. then that made him feel even more like he was some sort of fraud-ravenclaw  —  what ravenclaw thought they were better off not knowing things?

just like he forced himself to get over his worries to talk to his family and old friends, he forced himself to accept that words were never going to be his specialty. then he forced himself to be fine with that. he worked hard to focus on the things he was good at, that didn’t require him to talk too much  —  he always felt at home in the air on his broom, or with a sketchbook in his lap, or in the kitchen whipping up something that’d make other people happy. those things weren’t nothing. 

four. 

leander was smart, actually; he excelled in herbology and charms and worked hard enough everywhere else to not be singled out during class. he never caused as many explosions as his dad did from simple transfiguration. and he was great with people, for all that he got so in his head sometimes that he felt clumsy with even his dearest friends. but being smart never stopped anyone from being a fool. 

when leander looked back on his childhood, it was as if all of his roiling anxieties melted away. it was like looking in on a world encased in the sun  —  he imagined his memories as some sort of weird, reverse snow globe, where everything shimmered at the edges and only got brighter as you shook it up. 

hindsight made even mundane or negative memories seem golden, to leander. his biggest fault was that he always liked to think things were kinder than they actually were.

leander trusted people to be better than they were  and was bad at saying what he meant, which was, at times an awful combination for him. he trusted the world to treat him better than it did. 

if someone ever tries to convince him that, no, really, that harsh person from a historically bigoted family is not a good person, his stubbornness really came out and saw leander dig his feet in. he never wanted to believe that people had to be truly black or white  —  he was stubbornly convinced that there was good in every person, even when he was told he shouldn’t try so hard to look for it.

leander knew what was it like to feel you stood on the fringes of everybody else’s lives; no amount of forcing himself to be comfortable with the way he was ever took that anxiety away. he tried his hardest to be accommodating and friendly and understanding to everyone he came into contact with, even the people who maybe didn’t deserve his kindness. especially them, sometimes. he didn’t want anyone feeling like he was someone to be wary around. leander was steadfast in his beliefs and knew he wouldn’t change them, but all the same  —  that shouldn’t be a reason for someone to look at him and expect anything less than he gave everyone else.

four.

home never stopped being the most comforting place for leander. not even once he was older, a little more settled, and no longer had such stress over belonging in ravenclaw tower. not even once he had plenty of friends, a spot on the quidditch roster, a place in the castle. he adored not feeling so lost at school the older he got, but it couldn’t compete with home. 

the golden gleam of his memories made everything feel well-worn and well-loved in his head, but home was the biggest victim, and the most deserving of such treatment. leander was stubbornly adamant that there was no better place in the world than the finnigan-thomas’ home in kenmare. holidays at home with his family, extended and sprawling and filled with family friends as much as blood relatives, were leander’s favorite thing. 

he loved his dads so much  —  even as he couldn’t help but wonder, privately, if they wouldn’t have preferred a son who wasn’t such a fuck up sometimes. he’d certainly caused several dinner parties to grind to a halt with a poorly-phrased question directed at the aunt he forgot he wasn’t supposed to sit next to, after the incident over christmas dinner when he was ten. 

leander wondered if his dads wouldn’t want a son who was better at words, because leander always thought there were ways for him to be better. he wondered, privately, because he couldn’t help but worry. but the logical part of his brain knew that there wasn’t a need to worry over them. they loved him, he knew, and didn’t even need his memory to gloss everything over for that to be true.  

five. 

there was always a level of creativity in the house growing up, and leander took to it like a fish to water. he never really let up on his fascination with color and the physicality of paint clinging to his skin and the paintbrush and whatever canvas was in front of him. the permanently-painted floorboards in his room weren’t the only casualty in the house, but that was alright. no one ever gave leander too much grief over tracking paint everywhere.

it was easier for him to take a pencil to page than to find the words, sometimes, and he was so happy his family understood that about him, and let it grow. 

leander couldn’t keep track of how many drawings his dads pinned up to the fridge when he was a kid, or how excited dean had been to lead leander around museums growing up. he cherished every minute seamus spent nodding along as leander rambled about some era in art history seamus knew nothing about. it didn’t matter that leander grew into being comfortable at hogwarts, and around strangers, and people who weren’t so understanding with his fumbled words; it was work, with all of them, even as the work got easier on him. 

nothing about being near his family and feeling that love felt like work. 

leander, even grown out a childhood-self that worried over the ethics of stuffed dragons knocking over block towers, couldn’t help but be dragged down the whirlpool of hypothetical thoughts. he wondered if there was some alternate-universe leander who wasn’t as lucky as he was, who didn’t have his dads and his sister and his friends. maybe there was a leander who had those things but still lived in a world that was altogether harsher than his was. he thanked the universe as often as he remembered to that he was who he was, and that he was where he was. 

leander was bowled over by stress and anxiety and worries more often than he existed in a state of honest chill, but he was still so happy to have the life he did. he didn’t always feel like he deserved it, but he was glad it was his. 

six. 

when leander was sixteen, he dicked around enough on the internet to teach himself how to give magical tattoos and muggle tattoos both. he really thought that it shouldn’t have been so easy to order all the necessary equipment and have it delivered to his house; he really, really thought that the owl that came bearing his enchanted ink should’ve asked for, like, ID or something. it felt like getting away with something, how easy it was. 

leander was well-versed in courting trouble at this point and knew he shouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth. he just thought it was important to note that he worried at it being so easy for people without training to get all that stuff. 

he practiced on himself and his sister, with a little needling and an iron-clad pinkie swear that they’d keep the tattoos a secret from their dads. in hindsight, it was a very stupid decision on leander’s part to start practicing in the summer, when they went to the beach often enough that the two finnigan-thomas kids had to order some fancy witch-owned brand of waterproof concealer to cover the evidence. their dads didn’t notice the tattoos until they came home that winter break and forgot to start hiding them again, though, so leander would take the win. 

he offered tattoos to people at school, and really hoped that some of them also forgot to hide them when they went home for winter hols. it felt only fitting that his not-thought-out plan brought some other people a bit of trouble. he’d call it payback for all that time in their childhoods when he’d been the one getting dragged into problems, but the thought of payback as a concept made leander a little sad, so, whatever. 

seven. 

it felt only fitting that he looked into doing tattoos as a professional once he was out of hogwarts. dean certainly insinuated, when leander mused over the option, that it would make the shock he’d given his dads over the tattoos worth it. leander kind of agreed; he didn’t think the tattoos weren’t worth it, already, but there could be layers to worth. on principle, he loved the idea of practice. he liked to think that everything in life was practice for something to come  —  that nothing happened to you that couldn’t have a use later down the line. 

it had a nice symmetry to it, a circular-ness. it was the sort of lofty thought he’d have an absolute monster of a time voicing out loud, but he felt it, and sometimes that was enough for leander. it was like the paint worn into his floorboards that matched the quilt on his bed; unintentional but fitting anyway. 

leander wondered if maybe he shouldn’t look into going to muggle university to study art, or at least take an apprenticeship under a wizarding artist so he could learn how to paint portraits and landscapes that could move and all. there was still a career in that, people looking to have themselves or their relatives or their homes immortalized in oils even as moving photographs were so much easier these days. 

he was  —  definitely, he was interested in learning that sort of thing. it just felt like too big a goal to have for his life right after school was over. he hadn’t been suspended in a state of constant stress during his time at hogwarts, or anything, but h still felt a strong sort of relief when it was over. 

there were things he’d miss; how easy it was, having so many of his friends all living in the same place, all doing the same things and living such parallel lives. he’d miss quidditch practice now that he knew he’d never make it as a professional  —  and never want to, besides. he’d miss the community of it all, even as he recalled how hard it had been for him to settle into it. he knew that it would only take a year or two, maybe less than that, for him to start romanticizing his time there like nothing had ever hurt in the castle’s walls. 

but the sigh of relief, that was bigger than anything he missed, and it made him sure he wanted to take a step back from school and any formal training or education. he already knew enough about tattooing now that he felt assured it wouldn’t feel so much like starting over to make a job of it.

eight. 

leander was always far better at thinking on his feet than most people would guess from knowing him. it sometimes surprised leander himself, even  —  he knew he had a propensity towards worry, and it seemed like maybe he shouldn’t actually be good in an emergency. maybe it was just that he had an overactive fight or flight instinct that he’d long trained over the years to fight through whatever it could. he might not be the person people in his life wanted around when they were going through a crisis, but he knew how to handle himself in all manner of unexpected situations. leander liked to think he rarely made things worse. 

does he make good choices whilst thinking on his feet? not all the time. but then, who could be relied on to make the perfect decision during every high stress situation they found themselves tossed into? leander made choices, and knew better than to stand idle; leander was of the belief that second guessing things had no value, even as he couldn’t help himself sometimes. he tried his best to face every consequence of every action head on. 

he dug his feet in over stupid, foolish decisions often enough. it was fitting that sometimes when he dug his feet in, it was for a purpose. the best way out is through, and all that  —  maybe he’d get that adage tattooed on him someday, too. 

sometimes it still felt like things happened to him, like he was a less active participant in his life than others were in theirs. he’d always pick fight over flight but not every situation asked that choice of him. it was less because he had a genuine go-with-the-flow personality, and more that he had such a hard time saying no.  

nine. 

when the world around him started turning itself upside down with awfulness and inside out with tragedy, leander knew it wouldn’t do him any good to freeze now. he joined up with the order because he knew there really wasn’t any other option he could take and still look at himself in the mirror. he wasn’t an auror or a healer or anyone that he thought had, like, much of value to offer the cause. but he was asked, and he said yes, because leander always, always said yes when trouble came calling for him. it was instinctive at this point.

leander liked to think he didn’t hate a lot of things. his heart was too open, to full of potential love, for him to like feeling anything harsher than annoyance, frustration. he forced bursts of hurt to come and go in a count of ten, because dwelling on the negative made him feel hollowed out. 

but he stopped laying in bed at night so often, thanking his lucky stars that he was leander in this world over any others; he started, instead, wondering if any generation in this world of theirs would get to be untouched by even the threat of war. he wondered if it was too naive to wish this darkness would fade as quickly as it did when his dads were kids. 

he turned things over in his memory now that some of the worst had come to pass; normally he let everything be painted in shades of gold, but he wondered if that wasn’t part of the problem. maybe too many people had worked too hard to push prison breaks and strange disappearances to the side  —  maybe too many people had had wanted to remember things only as happy and bright. it was such an ingrained part of himself now that leander knew he’d never be able to stop thinking things were better than they were. 

maybe it would be the end of him one day. but at least he’d be himself, at the end. 

[thelaurenshippen]

so @megfitz89 and I were texting the other week about how “Don’t Blame Me” is such a Damien/Mark song and it reminded me that I had a B-Sides part 2 that I had never shared before!!! so here ya go. notes on my website and under the cut

It is July of 2020 as I write this, annotations for a playlist I haven't touched since 2018. But my friend Meghan and I were talking the other day about how "Don't Blame Me" is a real Damien/Mark song and it reminded me that I had never dusted off this second set of b-sides and shared them with the world.

An explanation of exactly what these songs are can be found in the

B-Sides Part I

but this playlist is even more of a grab bag than the first - songs that clicked years after making the original playlist, songs that got cut from book playlists, songs that belong on playlists that were never made.

As before, the characters are listed above the tracks, with a link to the playlist in question.

AGENT GREEN

1. "Madame Van Damme" - Lightspeed Champion

I can't even quite express what makes this an Agent Green song...it just is. This is particularly surprising because, if you tried to click on his name to get to his playlist you would have noticed you can't! That's because Owen has never had a playlist - he's always been defined by a single song. That song is "A Day in the Life" by The Beatles.

There's something deeply helpless about Owen, especially in the face of Joan and his love for her and this song just...feels like that.

DAMIEN & WADSWORTH

2. "What's My Name" - China Anne McClain

Yes, this is a song from the Disney Channel Original Movie "Descendants 2", what's your point?

Wadsworth is a powerful leader, whose name is feared and revered, like Uma, AND she uses people's names (calling Damien "Robert", Mark "Byron", Sam "Samantha", etc.) against them. Names carry power for her and she wields it like every other tool in her arsenal.

Also this song slaps.

DAMIEN & MARK

3. "Don't Blame Me" - Taylor Swift

I can't really explain why this didn't end up on the original Damien/Mark playlist other than there wasn't a good place for it in the flow. Lyrically it's them, tonally it's them, and it came out before I finished the playlist. There just wasn't a place for it.

If you walk away/I'd beg you on my knees to stay - I mean....this is essentially what happens in Season 4.

4. "Birds of a Feather" - The Civil Wars

Similarly, this didn't end up on their playlist because a Civil Wars song was already on there - "The One That Got Away", which suits them even more perfectly.

She's the sea I'm sinkin'  in/he's the ink under my skin/Sometimes I can't tell where I am/Where I leave off and he begins - like a lot of Civil Wars songs, this is such a great description of toxic love and perfectly fits these two.

Even more perfectly is the bridge that references Humpty Dumpty, the same children's rhyme that we referenced in "Together Again", Mark's song in the musical episode.

SAM & MARK

5. "For Once In My Life" - Michael Buble

This is 100% a song from Sam's perspective. It's hopeful and full of wonder at finally, finally being needed. Musically, I just couldn't find a spot for it.

SAM & MARK - Season 4

6. "The Hill" - Marketa Irglova

I actually included this on my annotations for this playlist, because it was a real last minute swap. I'll just copy those notes here.

2017: Oof, this is such a tragic song but so, so beautiful. Again, there’s so much in here about not being perfect and just wanting the other person to help you carry your burden but not knowing how to ask for that. I think this song is a great deal more pessimistic than Sam and Mark’s relationship, but a lot of the lyrics still ring true.

I wish I didn’t have to make all those mistakes and be wise/Please try to patient/and know that I’m still learning/I’m sorry that you have to see/the strength inside me burning

And I’m letting myself down/ by satisfying you/and I wish that you could see/I have my troubles too - they both have their troubles and they’re both letting themselves and each other down by constantly burying those troubles.

CALEB & ADAM

7. "Streetlight" - Danyew

As with the Caleb/Adam songs on the first B-Sides, this song didn't end up on a playlist because no out-of-universe playlist for the two of them really exists.  But this is a song that always feels like them to me.

I saw love/deeper than the Pacific - their love is always an ocean.

BOOK  PLAYLISTS (as of this writing, neither of the playlists for these songs have been published.)

8. "Paper Planes" - M.I.A.

There's a playlist meant to embody the people that Damien falls in with in Los Angeles in A Neon Darkness and this song fits the vibe of this group of young people getting up to trouble and being on the fringes of society.  But, ultimately, it didn't fit into the time period or genre of the book or playlist.

9. "33 "GOD"" - Bon Iver

I have a bunch of different playlists for the yet-to-be-titled Book 3 about the dreamwalker Rose. This song was initially on a playlist of hypnotic tunes that helped me get into the dreamworld headspace. Ultimately, I love this song too deeply, am too enamored by its intricacies and sampling of "Iron Sky" by Paolo Nutini, one of my all-time favorite songs, that it was counter-productive  to the repetitive, hypno-state the playlist was intended to achieve.

[blorb0]

This is the q and a created by @bathtub

1. favorite song from his channel?

Definitely either give up on your dreams of becoming a baker, or guide to the fringe. or darts. I love them all, though.

2. favorite dances moving episode?

ep 5: partner dancing. gets me every time

3. favorite non-song video?

probably buy my bed. i can quote it almost from memory

4. stranger sings or the croon?

okay i hate to say this but i haven’t seen either. i just don’t have the time! probably stranger sings, though, bc i like stranger things

5. favorite video in the unlisted playlist?

🎵don’t read the comments 2018🎵

6. best episode of bri and jo's tryin’ show?

okay so i haven’t seen all of these either. I’m sorry! I have a short attention span!

7. zuko or moose?

zuko. i’m a cat person

8. would you trust hugh brandity to advise you on how to find your brand?

absolutely. not. i don’t want to be permanently cursed...

9. walking on the west highland way or lake district walking?

this was a really hard one, but lake district walking. I just like the ending better.

10. which of brian’s siblings would you rather meet?

Laura. Is this even a question?

11. favorite song from look up?

probably five minutes. I like upbeat songs, and this was one of the first altogether songs that i listened to.

12. favorite song from when we were kids? (the album not some existential nostalgia question)

emelina, right or wrong!

13. favorite original song from the altogether?

aaaaah um maybe emelina right or wrong. I also like history read, though.

14. favorite altogether cover?

idk if this counts but i really like metamorphosis of a timberlake. also i wish.

15. favorite altogether song that isn't on spotify (but hopefully will be soon)?

ladybug! ladybug! ladybug! i’m so hyped for its official release!

16. favorite lyrics from the altogether?

i’m not looking at it right now but i like that line in clean slated state about quilts

17. do you prefer the youtube or spotify versions of the altogether songs?

Mostly, spotify. I appreciate the songs that are only on yt, though.

18. favorite episode of let’s make a music?

the third one!

19. favorite song from lmam?

i actually really like the theme song. It makes me happy

20. favorite character from lmam?

idk if you can tell but i’ve only heard the first few episodes of lmam. I like Mr. Dad, though.

21. what’s more underappreciated: jonah’s playing or laura’s singing?

i’d say jonah’s playing. don’t fight me.

22. who’s a better parent: the dad in proud egg mouth or sybil in sybil’s night scare?

i haven’t heard either of these episodes. if you’re still reading, i’m so sorry

23: most underrated lmam song?

i don’t feel qualified to answer this question

24: which cryptid would you rather have to confront: mr. dad or scumbo?

mr. dad. bc he’s the only one i know

25: do you prefer the original heartbreak in michael’s or the reprise?

i haven’t heard either of those

26: do you have a favorite tweet that was sent into lmam?

nope :(

and finally

27: favorite overall video/podcast episode/song/any single piece of content not from polygon?

darts. <3

[babsxkean]

jimbabs playlist - teenage edition 

From Day One to Forever

April 14, 1992 

She’s always hated coming to these parties. 

Her parents stuff her into some hideous tulle confection that her mother has the temerity to call a dress, curling Babs’s red hair -- her best feature, according to Mrs. Kean -- and painting her face so that it looked dewy, one of her mother’s favorite words to describe her appearance and therefore one that Babs loathes with particular intensity. They steer her around like a dog at Westminster, and Babs is forced to smile while men old enough to be her father leer at her, and women praise her looks and her figure and her sweet disposition, as if she’s nothing more than a doll, rather than a young woman burning with resentment and with a longing for freedom.

But then again, it’s at one of these parties that she meets Jim Gordon, so in retrospect, she supposes they aren’t so bad after all.

She manages to sneak away for a cigarette, leaning against the balcony railing with the cigarette poised between her fingers, a thin tendril of smoke curling up into the sky. Staring out at the familiar cityscape sprawling far below her, she wonders what it would be like to live anywhere else. L.A., New York, Miami, Seattle...anywhere would be better than Gotham. 

Specifically, anywhere would be better away from her parents. She’s been raised in the lap of luxury, in this beautiful house, but this place has always been cold, more like a museum than a home. And she’s simply one of the exhibits.

Babs hears footsteps behind her, and she sighs, expecting it to be one of her parents come to collect her. When she turns around, though, she sees an unfamiliar face -- and, she can’t help but notice, a rather gorgeous one. A shaggy blonde fringe sets off bright blue eyes, which study her framed by sculpted features and a strong jaw. 

“Who are you?” she says, and her life changes.

April 28, 1992

Two weeks later, and they’re inseparable -- but he still hasn’t kissed her yet.

It’s driving her crazy, and she’s starting to worry that he actually doesn’t like her all that much. Although why else he would be coming to her house, risking the attention of her parents, she can’t even begin to guess. So he must like her, but if he likes her, why won’t he kiss her?

They’re sitting by the Kean family pool, their feet in the water. Jim has chivalrously lent her his jacket, draped around her slender shoulders. She’s listening to him talk, or at least she’s trying to listen -- but all she can focus on is how very much she wants his lips on hers, those warm, broad palms of his settling on her waist as he pulls her closer.

He’s in the middle of saying something about the baseball team, which she frankly has never paid one bit of attention to before now, when she reaches for his face and turns it toward hers. “Jim,” she sighs, her tone a mixture of affection and impatience.

She kisses him, wrapping one arm around his neck and curling her free hand into the material of his t-shirt. As she hoped he would, he grabs her around the waist and tugs her closer, kissing her back with flattering and reassuring enthusiasm. 

It seems that he does like her after all.

June 14, 1992

“I love you,” she says.

If she’s being honest, she’s wanted to say it before tonight. But she kept telling herself that it was too soon, that she would scare him away. And even by the night by the pool, she knew that losing Jim would break her heart.

But it’s been two months, and they’re alone by the bay, Jim holding her from behind and his chin on her shoulder, both of them facing the water. It’s easier to say it when they stand like this, when she can’t see his face. 

She’s forming a vague plan to just throw herself into the water from the bridge when he kisses her cheek and says into her ear: “I love you, too.”

August 22, 1992

Their first time takes place only yards away from their first kiss, on the foldout couch in the pool house. Maybe it’s not the most romantic of places, but it’s theirs; her parents almost never come in here. The doors lock and Babs has the only key. She thinks they’ve mostly furnished this little house because it’s a status symbol -- not only to have a pool house, period, but to have it fully bedecked with elegant furniture, including a TV and a VCR. 

They spend most of their time here when Jim comes over. Usually, they just curl up together on the couch, Jim’s arm around her and her head nestled against his shoulder as they watch TV or a movie. More than once, when they sit like this, Babs thinks that she’s never felt so safe.

Of course, cuddling and watching television isn’t all they do. Every time Jim kisses her makes her feel like she’s burning up in the most wonderful way, and so she’ll often pass an evening or a Saturday afternoon in a state of feverish pleasure, kissing him over and over again. Lingering, sweet kisses; playful pecks between their conversations; deep kisses that have an edge she is entirely unfamiliar with but is more than willing to explore.

It’s these kisses that take them further than they’ve been before. Often when they kiss like this, it’s Jim who pulls away. He doesn’t want to push her, he says. 

But tonight, as he pulls back, she winds her arms around his neck and kisses him again. “I don’t want to stop,” she says, almost pleading. 

He looks at her for a moment, studying her eyes as if trying to ascertain if she’s serious. She bits her lip and looks up at him, nodding. “Jim, please,” she says. “I mean it. I’m ready, I swear.”

Even more than a physical desire, which is undoubtedly there, she wants the world to narrow down to just the two of them. That’s all she ever wants now. To be swept up in this strong, steady boy who loves her, if only for a little while; and maybe when she comes back to herself, she can carry some of his strength and steadiness with her.

Afterward, they curl together under a blanket, like they’ve done hundreds of times before. The difference now is that she is vitally aware that nothing separates them beneath the blanket, that every inch of her skin is exposed and brushing every now and again against his, each time with a thrilling little frisson. 

She hurts, a little, but it’s not bad. Definitely not as bad as some of her friends made it seem like it would. There’s an ache, and she thinks the difference between her and many of the other girls she knows is that, for them, it’s the ache of something taken; whereas for her, it’s the ache of something willingly given that has left behind something new and tender. 

“Are you okay?”

It’s the fourth time he’s asked this. 

She turns her head to kiss his cheek. “Yes, Jim. I would tell you if I wasn’t.”

They fall asleep like that, and she has to wake him up and kiss him goodbye in a rush just after midnight. Even with this small moment of panic, in which Jim dashes out of the house with, somehow, his shirt on backwards, she doesn’t think she’s ever been happier.

January 5, 1993

She can’t stop crying.

“I’m sorry,” she says, over and over. She can’t stop. Her arms are around Jim’s neck and she’s hiding her face against his chest. She can’t look at him. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry…”

She’s ruined his life, she’s ruined hers. At least that’s what her mother says. Mrs. Kean had wanted Babs to get rid of it without even telling Jim, but she couldn’t. She couldn’t get rid of it at all. 

Because it, for worse or for better, was a baby. Hers and Jim’s baby. Her greatest fear, her only fear, is that Jim will leave -- or his parents will make him leave. The Gordons have never been anything less than kind to her, but right now, she can’t think straight. 

In between desperate, hitching sobs, she tells him, because she won’t do what her mother wants her to do, her parents have kicked her out of the house. “I don’t have anywhere else to go,” she whispers.

Jim manages to pry her off his neck, and even though it feels like forcing boulders out of her mouth, together they tell her parents. “She doesn’t have anywhere to go,” Jim says, clasping Babs to his side as if he’s afraid someone will try to take her away from him.

She’s stopped crying, but tears are still trickling intermittently down her cold cheeks. Mrs. Gordon approaches her, tilts her chin up with one finger, and wipes the tears away with another.

“She’ll stay here,” Mrs. Gordon says firmly. 

Babs looks up at her. “What?”

“You’ll stay here,” Mrs. Gordon repeats. “You’re family now. And I can promise you this, dear, we’ll treat you with the love and support you deserve. Your parents clearly never appreciated what they had in you, but we will.”

Babs hiccups, and then manages to find a smile.

September 23, 1993

“I want to name her Barbara.”

“But your--”

“I know what my own name is, Jim. That’s why I want to name her Barbara. If she was a boy, nobody would think twice if we named her James Jr., so why can’t I name her after myself? I’m the one who was just in labor for 49 hours. What did you do?”

Jim laughs, even though she’s being completely serious. “Well, okay,” he says. “We’ll name her Barbara Lee, how does that sound?”

“Barbara Lee Gordon,” she says softly. “Yes, that sounds nice.”

April 14, 2000

She puts the flower basket into Barbara’s hands, kneeling down in her white dress so that she’s on her daughter’s eye level. “So you know what to do, right?”

Barbara, seven years old with the Kean red hair, tosses her head impatiently in such a Babs-like manner that she has to bite her lip to keep from laughing. “Yeah, I know,” she says. “I grab some petals and I throw them.”

“On the floor,” Babs specifies. “In front of you.”

“Yeah.”

“Not at people.”

“I know!”

“Alright, alright,” Babs says, kissing her daughter’s forehead. “I just wanted to be sure. Today is a special day for all of us.”

She and Jim had discussed getting married a few times since they’d had Barbara, but Babs has always been insistent that it be because they loved each other and wanted to spend their lives together, not just because she’d had Jim’s baby. 

It was one thing to say forever when you were sixteen and caught up in the emotional whirlwind that came with a newborn. She had known, almost from the start, that she wanted to be with Jim for the rest of her life; but she had wanted, almost desperately, for them to be as normal of a couple as possible, despite their circumstances. And a normal couple waited, and spent years together, and grew together before they got married. 

Then Jim had joined the army, the longest two years of Babs’s life. Every time there had been an unexpected knock at the door, her heart had jumped into her throat. Of course, now that he’s home, he’s become a cop, which is only an improvement in that he comes home every night -- well, most nights -- and she knows where to reach him. 

But then again, there was never any doubt in her mind that Jim would have gone into some recklessly noble profession, in order to protect the city that he loves; the fact that she sincerely doubts anyone can really save Gotham is something she does her best to keep to herself. 

She had known he was going to propose almost as soon as he returned home. She hadn’t found the ring itself, but she’d found the receipt; and she’d spent days in a feverish anticipation that became more and more panic-stricken as time wore on. What if he’d changed his mind? Was it possible he’d met someone else? She certainly couldn’t ask him about any of this, because she wasn’t even supposed to know!

And then one night, he took her to one of her favorite restaurants, where the dress code was strictly black tie and the wine was served in crystal glasses. She had expected it to hide the ring in the champagne, or the dessert -- although personally she’d never understood that, considering that seemed like such a choking hazard, and an expensive one at that -- but they ordered both, and no dice. 

Or no ring, rather.

Babs was distinctly put out, and increasingly nervous, so when they got home, she almost didn’t notice. Her favorite flowers were set out in a vase on the coffee table, two lit tapers on either side throwing warm, flickering shadows over the petals and a box of the Belgian chocolates that she loved. 

When Jim cleared his throat, Babs turned around to find him on one knee, the ring box open in his hand. “Oh, I hate you,” she said, starting to laugh and cry at the same time.

But of course she said yes.

They hadn’t really wanted a big wedding, which had surprised people when it came to Babs. The only material thing she really cared about was the dress -- she had longed since she was a little girl to look like a princess at her wedding. Everything else, she was more than happy to compromise with Jim about. 

Only three people really matter today -- first is Babs herself, of course. She is the bride, after all.

And then there’s Barbara, who walks ahead of her mother down the aisle, dutifully scattering rose petals before taking a seat next to Jim’s mother, who sat front and center on Jim’s side of the church. The fact that Babs’s side was nearly empty was something she resolutely pushed from her mind. 

The only other person who matters today is standing in front of her at the altar, wearing a finely tailored suit and a smile so wide it makes her chest hurt. God, he was handsome. For eight years, he had been such a rock for her, the first person in her life to ever really show her that she was worthy of love, to love her at all.

Her own parents aren’t here, but she doesn’t care. Jim’s father walks her down the aisle, and she feels like the pace is too slow; she just wants to be married to him already. Suddenly, it seems like she’s been waiting for this particular moment forever, and she realizes she wouldn’t care if it was just her, and Jim, and Barbara here with the minister.

She doesn’t realize her fingers are trembling out of sheer nerves until Jim’s hands are grasping hers, and he steadies her. Just like he always has. 

“I, Barbara, take you, James…”

Has she ever called him James before? Anyway. Focus, Babs.

“...to be my lawfully wedded husband. To have and to hold, from this day forward, for better or for worse…”

The vows seem to take forever, especially since she’s terrified of flubbing and coming off like an idiot. Which is so entirely not the point right now, but she is who she is.

Then finally, finally, the minister says, “You may kiss the bride.”

And she kisses her husband. 

[purpleyin]

get to know u asks

Was tagged by @canarysirens​ a while ago and finally getting to this. :)

top 4 ships:

alt!Liv/alt!Lincoln (Fringe) - the universe did them wrong but I’ll cling to the multiverse of fic so yay.

McKay/Weir (SGA) - it wasn’t a big ship contingent but we were dedicated (I used to run the fansite and fic archive for it before ao3 was a thing).

Derek/Stiles (Teen Wolf) - I got into that fandom late and I swear between the tumblr tags and a few early promo spots I saw from the cast I thought it was actually gonna be a thing in canon. I was disappoint. But the fandom is hella creative.

savisnow (The Flash) - this ship is barely afloat and not necessarily healthy but I am trash for it anyhow. I like complicated and timey wimey.

last song according to spotify: probably a song from a playlist because that’s what I use spotify for. Youtube is what I listen to stuff on usually and my recent one on repeat is 8 Graves “Burning Alive”.

last movie: He's Just Not That Into You - I’ve watched it I don’t know how many times now. I’m a sucker for Gigi/Alex and Beth/Neil (I love the point they make about Neil versus her sisters husbands near the end. It’s easy to say somethings, harder to show it in actions).

currently reading: ummm, the same book I was reading since Halloween “Under My Hat: Tales from the Cauldron,” oops. Fanfic is so much easier to read, although I’m behind on what I want to read due to job hunting zapping energy these last few months.

food i’m craving: Proper takeaway fish and chips.

relationship status: in a relationship, although being polyam that doesn’t mean the same thing as it would for other people. Not actively looking for another partner. I do have a bit of a crush (maybe? romantic feelings are weird to figure out when not full blown) on a friend but not doing anything about it.

favorite color: I find it too hard to pick, I want them all. I’ve been favouring red lately tho.

lipstick or chapstick: I like the ones that sort of do both, but I’d probably pick chapstick if I had to choose.

favorite food: I like variety so picking is hard but I really do like eggs.

top 3 shows: Fringe, Black Sails, The Good Place.

last thing i googled: the full title of the book I hadn’t finished. Before that it was Caity Lotz pics for last nights moodboard.

height: 5'7" ish

time: 14.44

song stuck in my head: 'Moral of the Story' by Ashe keeps coming back to me randomly lately after watching "To All the Boys: P.S. I Still Love You“.

wearing:  mismatched pj’s, a comfy cardigan and a wrist brace for my mouse hand.

# of blankets i sleep with: one duvet to rule them all *cough* I mean an all seasons duvet that I only take off the bed when it gets to heatwave time. Also got a summer quilt on right now which is light pastels.

dream trip: Japan at the time of cherry blossoms.

favorite gif:  I wanted to do the husky jumping into a big pile of leaves but can’t find it so here’s one I just thought was cool (I like rain).

I can’t deal with tagging specific people right now, so I’m just gonna say if you want to do it consider yourself tagged by me.